A Proposal for a Propane Tank Looms Large Over a Maine Coastal Town

SEARSPORT, Me. — In the winter of 2007, thousands of homes and businesses in rural Maine almost lost their heat because of a severe propane shortage.

The shortage led to rationing and prompted Gov. John Baldacci to scramble for a solution, including asking DCP Midstream, a Denver company that already supplied propane to New England, to help increase imports to guard against future disruptions, company officials said.

Now, six years later, DCP has finally obtained approval from all government agencies — save one — to build a $50 million import terminal in this tiny port town in midcoast Maine. It would include a liquid petroleum storage tank that would stand 14 stories high, almost the height of the Statue of Liberty from the top of its base to the torch, making it one of the largest of its kind in the country.

But a funny thing happened during the lengthy governmental approval process — the energy industry, flush with gas from hydraulic fracturing in the nation’s shale fields, did a U-turn and has cut back on imports in favor of exports.

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A sign in protest of the proposed liquid petroleum storage tank on Route 1 in Camden, Me.CreditDavid Wright for The New York Times

“There has not been a ship that has brought propane into New England in almost a year,” said Joe Rose, the president and chief executive of the Propane Gas Association of New England. “At this point, the facilities in New England are in a state of being semi-mothballed.”

Despite the drastic change in the market, DCP officials say they still want to build a terminal for imports. Markets fluctuate, they point out, and by the time the tank would be built, in two years, New England could again be seeking imports.

Talk of the proposed tank has consumed Searsport, population 2,800, and the surrounding region. The project has many supporters, who say it will bring much-needed jobs and provide a major economic infusion. It also has many detractors, who say the 23 million-gallon tank will pose a constant danger — that an explosion could release as much energy as 33 Hiroshima-size atomic bombs — and blight the coastline, lower property values and drive away tourists.

Opponents, under the umbrella group Thanks but No Tank, are challenging the tank in court as their options for blocking it through the governmental process dwindle. DCP has already received permits and approvals from the necessary state and federal agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers.

The last hurdle is the Searsport Planning Board, a five-member board of volunteers. The board held five hearings in November and expected to wrap up shortly afterward.

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David Graham, a DCP Midstream project manager, sat through a hearing of the town's planning board.CreditDavid Wright for The New York Times

But the hearings took on a life of their own and have continued. By now, there have been 10, most of them lasting four hours. Townspeople pack into the high school cafeteria on bitterly cold nights and sit through the sessions hour after hour. Some bring their knitting. Others watch the hearings later online, like a mini-series.

The hearings are replete with expert witnesses and courtroom theatrics. Both sides have inundated the board with mounds of technical data, much of it conflicting. This has prompted the board to order its own studies and hire its own advisers to help it wade through terms like “bleve,” which rhymes with Chevy and stands for “boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.”

The hearings are run by J. Bruce Probert, 75, who has been the chairman of the planning board for 35 years. He is a methodical type, but he said in an interview that the initial hearings made him so anxious that he did not sleep for several nights and lost 12 pounds in a week.

“Running the hearings is like flying a helicopter,” he said. “There’s a lot going on at once.”

One more hearing has been scheduled for Monday. After another round of written submissions, the board will begin its deliberations, in public. Its final decision is expected in March or April, though it is likely to be appealed and to leave the town cleaved.

Supporters note that Searsport has long encouraged development of this sort and has zoned an industrial area for it. The new tank would sit near an already existing “tank farm” of 30 smaller, less visible tanks. Supporters say the project would bring 100 construction jobs and a dozen permanent jobs that would each pay up to $56,000 a year, along with benefits. They also say it would contribute significantly to the local tax base.

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“The people from New Jersey who want lobster aren’t coming here to eat in the shadow of that tank,” said Bud Hall, whose restaurant sits 400 feet from a proposed liquid propane tank site.CreditCraig Dilger for The New York Times

“When you see those ships coming in, that’s money coming in, and it trickles down to everybody,” said Kathleen Garrold, 54, a medical secretary who grew up here.

She said she had faith in the company’s assertions that the tank did not pose a hazard, recalling that a company witness, Phani K. Raj, had said the tank would be perfectly safe. A “bleve,” he testified, was “impossible.”

Others say a bleve is indeed possible. “They said Fukushima was safe, and they said the 9/11 towers were never going to fall,” said Tom Gocze, 60, whose waterfront home looks out on the proposed site. “But things happen.”

Mere discussion of the tank, real estate agents have testified, has already driven away prospective home buyers. And opponents believe that if the tank were to be built, tourists would no longer visit the town’s stately old bed and breakfasts, once the homes of sea captains, or pitch tents at the oceanside campgrounds on nearby Sears Island.

“The people from New Jersey who want lobster aren’t coming here to eat in the shadow of that tank,” said Bud Hall, who owns Anglers Restaurant and the adjacent Bait’s Motel, which sit 400 feet from the proposed site, within the “blast zone.”

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Nearly 200 people attended a meeting of the Searsport Planning Board last month. The hearings have taken on a life of their own. By now, there have been 10, most lasting four hours.CreditDavid Wright for The New York Times

So far, DCP has won each test along the way. They persuaded the town to more than double its building height limit to 150 feet accommodate the 138-foot-high tank.

In March 2012, opponents sought to stop the process by calling for a moratorium. DCP adopted campaign-style tactics to defeat it. “DCP opened an office on Main Street and hired 8 to 10 people at $100 a day to go door-to-door to hand out leaflets in favor of the tank,” The Free Press of Rockland wrote. Voters rejected the moratorium, 297 to 165.

To help build their case, opponents at the Islesboro Islands Trust hired Richard A. Clarke, a former White House national security adviser, who runs a security risk management firm, to conduct a risk assessment of the proposal. Mr. Clarke’s report recommended that the planning board deny the company its permit, saying the tank provided “too great a risk to the community.” It said that the site was too small, that neighbors were too close and that the region was not prepared, in terms of emergency personnel or financially, to respond if a major problem occurred.

He also addressed the changed market, warning that because of the lack of imports, the facility “may become a shuttered eyesore, unable to financially support the emergency response augmentation that building the facility requires.”

Stephen Hinchman, a lawyer for the opponents, said he believed that instead of shutting the plant, DCP would convert it for exports. That would mean ships year-round, with many more trucks and rail cars, all of which would cause more disruption to the town and create more chances for accidents.

Company officials have said that converting the terminal would be difficult, but they have not unequivocally ruled it out.

“We maintain we have no intent on developing this as an export terminal,” Rosslyn Elliott, a spokeswoman for DCP, wrote in an e-mail. “It is designed for import. If anything changes, it would require significant redesign and repermitting. That’s not a light undertaking. Again, we view this in long-term value, not short-term cyclical highs and lows.”

Correction:

An earlier version of a caption with this article misidentified the photographer who took the picture of opponents standing in a circle.He is Peter Wilkinson — not David Wright, who took the picture of the “No Thanks” sign.

Correction:

A picture caption on Saturday with an article about concerns over a proposed liquid petroleum tank in the Maine coastal town of Searsport described incorrectly opponents of the tank who were shown standing in a circle and holding hands. They were demonstrating the tank’s circumference, not its diameter.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: A Proposal for a Propane Tank Looms Large Over a Maine Coastal Town. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe